In memory of Christine Brooke-Rose,
an image from the date of her death—
See also A Little Story and Before Dehors.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Turing Gate
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Sunday, October 1, 2006
Sunday October 1, 2006
Tales of Philosophy:
Recipe for Disaster
according to Jerome Kagan,
Harvard psychologist emeritus
| From Log24 — | |
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From Harvard's Jerome Kagan — |
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| "'Humans demand that there be a clear right and wrong,' he said. 'You've got to believe that the track you've taken is the right track. You get depressed if you're not certain as to what it is you're supposed to be doing or what's right and wrong in the world.'" | "People need to divide the world into good and evil, us and them, Kagan continued. To do otherwise– to entertain the possibility that life is not black and white, but variously shaded in gray– is perhaps more honest, rational and decent. But it's also, psychically, a recipe for disaster." |
Black and White: |
Shades of Gray: |
The above Kagan quotes are taken
from a New York Times essay by
Judith Warner as transcribed by
Mark Finkelstein on Sept. 29.
See also Log24 on
Sept. 29 and 30.
Related material:
Kagan's book
Surprise, Uncertainty,
and Mental Structures
(Harvard U. Press, April 2002)
and Werner Heisenberg–
discoverer of the
uncertainty principle—
as Anakin Skywalker
being tempted by
the Dark Side:
George Lucas, who has profited
enormously from public depictions
of the clash between
good and evil, light and dark,
may in private life be inclined
to agree with Hercule Poirot:
"It is the brain, the little gray cells
on which one must rely.
One must seek the truth
within– not without."
(This is another version of the
"Descartes before dehors" principle–
See "A Table," Sept. 28.)
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Thursday September 28, 2006
A Table
| From the diary of John Baez: September 22, 2006… Meanwhile, the mystics beckon:
September 23, 2006I’m going up to San Rafael (near the Bay in Northern California) to visit my college pal Bruce Smith and his family. I’ll be back on Wednesday the 27th, just in time to start teaching the next day. |
A check on the Rumi quote yields
this, on a culinary organization:
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“Out beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
This is the starting place of good spirit for relationship healing and building prescribed centuries ago in the Middle East by Muslim Sufi teacher and mystic, Jelaluddin Rumi (1207-1273). Even earlier, the Psalmists knew such a meeting place of adversaries was needed, sacred and blessed: |
A Field and a Table:
From “Communications Toolbox”
at MathWorks.com
For more on this field
in a different context, see
Generating the Octad Generator
and
“Putting Descartes Before Dehors”
in my own diary for December 2003.
Descartes
Après l’Office à l’Église
de la Sainte-Trinité, Noël 1890
(After the Service at Holy Trinity Church,
Christmas 1890), Jean Béraud
Let us pray to the Holy Trinity that
San Rafael guides the teaching of John Baez
this year. For related material on theology
and the presence of enemies, see Log24 on
the (former) Feast of San Rafael, 2003.
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